Thursday, December 04, 2008

And Quietly Gets Swallowed By a Wave

I mentioned knitting on the trip home, but I neglected to specify what I was knitting: Eunny Jang's Print o' the Wave stole.

I wanted something portable, complex enough to be diverting, simple enough to be worked in company, and long enough to fill up the whole voyage. Plus, the idea of knitting waves while surrounded by them appealed to my sense of poetry.

The stole answered on all counts. I cast on at O'Hare and worked about three repeats before landing at Heathrow. Then it sat untouched until we got on the bus to Southampton. By the time we disembarked in Brooklyn, I was up to the tenth repeat or so.

That's when I noticed that in the fifth repeat, I had neatly eliminated one of the three rows of faggot stitch in the "trellis" that separates the the leftmost motif from the others. It was a beautiful move, truly–practically invisible. You never saw the like. There were three rows in the trellis, and then–poof!–there were two. Magical.

I looked at it for quite some time in wonderment, before getting up and going to the window and yelling quite a selection of vile, hateful things about the shawl to people passing by on the street. I think I suggested that the shawl was descended in the maternal line from a lady dog. I distinctly recall accusing it of having done something unspeakable to its own mother.

Happily, as I live on the fifteenth floor and had the window shut, nobody heard any of this except possibly my next door neighbors, and they don't bother to call the police any more.

So I ripped back and re-knit. I'm not sure how I managed it, since I hadn't put in lifelines, but I did. Maybe the shawl cooperated because it was afraid I'd start yelling again. (I'm small and quiet, but when roused I can achieve ear-splitting decibel levels.)

I'm exactly halfway up the center now at 17 repeats. It looks good, but I'm encountering pattern fatigue. Some knitters, I know, embrace large stretches of Same. They find it relaxing. I wish I did, but I don't. Too much Same makes me think another hobby might suit me better. Something with more rapid changes of scene, like Bungee jumping.

Mind you, I'm not giving up. I know if I keep on going my mood will shift and I'll fall trulymadlydeeply for the project again. It's a sweet, clever piece I plan to use as an inspirational sample for my lace knitting classes. Still–right now...at this precise moment...

Gotta watch out for those small quiet people. My husband is a small quiet person, right up to the point when he begins yelling vile and hateful things. Since we do not live on the 15th floor, the neighbor children are getting quite the vocabulary education!

I'd love to see a better photo of you and the lace, right now it looks like you are BOTH very mad at each other. I know it will pass... btw, I'm terribly easily entertained, I love long simple pattern repeats that allow my simple mind to wander.. maybe I should try that stole...

Having felt this way myself.. often, I had to laugh. Actually, I went past the laughing stage straight on into the silently shaking with mirth and glee stage. Luckily, no one was here to witness my hideous hunched expression. Oh how I treasure you!

Yes, such is a knitter's life - the frogging aspect that is. It is so maddening but we all experience it. And, now I extend my sympathies to you and whisper quietly to your stole that it better beware!

Same here causes the famed Startitis, which results in a basket on either side of me, each containing 5 or 6 objects in varying stages of Same. A word we might use to describe their current status would be "languishing". Then suddenly I get bitten by the Same bug, and it becomes comforting to knit Same for a while. Sometimes I reach Finished.

"Sameness" is why I love intarsia/stranded/fair isle/whatever the correct term is knitting. Alway a change and patterns take shape before your eyes. Poor you and the lace of no return. :o( You should knit some gloves, pet.

poop happens :-)however, a photo like that does not happen very often. it is well and truly a gallery piece, i tell you! take it out of this blog's context, and i can imagine the unsuspecting audience staring at it for a good couple of minutes trying to get over it.

You need a drink. I don't care if it IS 7:14 local time, you need one.

Concerning your gloves-Cabela's. Or Bass Pro Shops. Now I realize that you won't be hunting anything more than ciabatta in the wilds of the west side, but they have plain, insulated like crazy, kids black gloves. In Children's XL.

and remember: this is really hard stuff to do. others look at us and shake their heads. on the one hand, we say, it's easy. and it is, basically. but we intentionally complicate it because we revere creating beauty.

and we do it because we like to succeed at challenges and we're in the process of teaching ourselves to perservere in spite of setbacks. the ego side of us wants it to be perfect, the first time. "oh yea...i just dashed this off while i was on vacation." but excellence is another story, ya? keep after it.

I have a sweater that just needs some more work on the sleeves that is in exactly the same boat, because I got tired of doing the same lace pattern. Sometimes I feel like that is the real reason for the Aran patterns. Always something new.

I completely sympathise! I cast on a sweater (the February Lady's Sweater based on EZ's pattern) just after my wedding in October to be knit while travelling around Japan on my honeymoon. I knit and knit and knit on the 14 hour flight and all the hours of train travel for almost 2 weeks. Then, 2 days before the end of our trip when it was finally long enough to try on (it's a top-down sweater) I discovered that it was too small. Way too small. So there I was, on a train back to Tokyo, ripping my whole sweater apart. Right down to the cast on. I had to start from scratch and it took another week and a half to get back to where I was.

Now I, too, am getting a bit of pattern fatigue, but I'm hanging in there. I'm determined to get this thing done as close to our honeymoon as poosible!

Oh! I have to tell you! I was searching my library internet server for knitting books (great place for pre-buy look-sees, and out of print gems)and your book is there! I will also add that there were 5 people in line for the 7 books that were already checked out. I, of course, purchased mine ages ago.. Washington county, Oregon (right next to Portland)loves Franklin!

Oh, how I love that stole! I knit one to wear on my wedding, and I promised to only think happy, joyful things while knitting. It was a wee bit of a challenge at times, but I removed myself when needed in order to not abuse the lace!

That isn't the red Skacel merino reborn from your first pass at Sharon Miller's Wedding Ring Shawl, is it? Maybe third time will be the charm. (or maybe it's jinxed.) It certainly is a wonderful shade of red.

I am a new reader of your blog, and this is my first comment, so allow me first to say your blog is in my top three. I'm still workinging out the chronology. I have a copy of your new book too and love it.

I just searched on BarnesandNoble.com to see if you have written any novels. You should be! In my humble opinion (I'm no professional in the publishing business), your writing styling is very unique. I would buy your novels in a second.

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